I decided last week that I wanted to go to Oslo to participate in the QA hackathon. After having fleshed out the details out with my wife, I ordered the flight tickets.
And then... I remembered my passport had expired.
So I had to read up on the passport rules and the police homepage stated that I as a dane did not need a passport to travel to the other Nordic Countries. The Copenhagen/Kastrup airport homepage (CPH) stated the same and listed no requirements for a passport when flying.
So friday afternoon I took the chance. Checking in went quite ok - the lady at the counter did not notice the expiration date, security check did not require a passport. But when I got to the gate, the lady there noticed that the passport had expired and inquired for additional ID holding a picture, like a drivers license - man, I am not good with people in uniforms.
Anyway I do not own a drivers license, so she asked for my healt insurance card, which is simply like a creditcard, no picture just name and address. And the funny thing is that it is also obsolete, since I both moved and changed my name (had a prefix removed), but at least it was resembling the passport. So she told me to renew my passport and let me move on.
After an annoying flight in a very cramped seat where I could not even sit with my MacBook Pro. I got to the hotel and I hastedly wanted to move on to the Irish pub 'Shamrock', where everybody were meeting up.
I had not written all the addresses down, but bdfoy had been so nice as to leave me a key and the password for the wireless network on the hotel.
So I accessed the 'Shamrock' link on the Wiki and it gave me an error message: Warning: mysql_connect(): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) in /home/httpd/vhosts/shamrock.no/httpdocs/Includes/db.php on line 9 Connection could not be made
So I had too google a bit to find the address of the pub. After having located the address, Google maps made it easy locate and I made it to the pub on foot, using a physical map I got in the hotel reception.
I attempted to get the Google Map working on my iPhone, but the credentials I found either do not work or I do not have roaming enable for data.
So with a 'New Castle Brown Ale' in hand I join my fellow Perl hackers and I had a really nice time talking to old friends and people whom I had not met before.
